Mobile Communications Device User Interface

ABSTRACT

A mobile communications device user interface is described. In an implementation, a method is implemented by a mobile communications device that includes outputting a user interface having a portion that is configured to accept content. When an option is selected in relation to the portion to initiate a communication and the content includes one or more contacts, the communication is formed that includes the content and is automatically addressed to the one or more contacts.

RELATED APPLICATIONS

This application is a continuation of and claims priority under 35U.S.C. §120 to U.S. patent application Ser. No. 12/484,799, filed onJun. 15, 2009, which claims priority under 35 U.S.C. Section 119(e) toU.S. Provisional Patent Applications Nos. 61/107,945, 61/107,935, and61/107,921, each of which was filed on Oct. 23, 2008, the entiredisclosures of which are hereby incorporated by reference in theirentirety.

BACKGROUND

Mobile communication devices (e.g., wireless phones) have become anintegral part of everyday life. However, the form factor employed byconventional mobile communications devices is typically limited topromote mobility of the mobile communications device.

For example, the mobile communications device may have a relativelylimited amount of display area when compared to a conventional desktopcomputer, e.g., a PC. Therefore, conventional techniques used tointeract with a desktop computer may be inefficient when employed by amobile communications device. For example, it may be difficult to selectmultiple items of content using convention techniques on a mobilecommunications device that has a limited amount of display area.

SUMMARY

A mobile communications device user interface is described. In animplementation, a method is implemented by a mobile communicationsdevice that includes outputting a user interface having a portion thatis configured to accept content. When an option is selected in relationto the portion to initiate a communication and the content includes oneor more contacts, the communication is formed that includes the contentand is automatically addressed to the one or more contacts.

In an implementation, one or more computer-readable storage mediaincludes instructions that are executable by a mobile communicationsdevice to configure a user interface to include a portion that isconfigured to accept a plurality of contacts via a drag-and-dropoperation. The instructions are further configured to provide an optionthat is selectable to initiate a communication to each of the pluralityof contacts.

In an implementation, a mobile communications device includes a displaydevice, a processor, and memory configured to maintain a plurality ofapplications and an operating system that are executable on theprocessor. The operating system is configured to expose a feature to theplurality of applications to output in a user interface for display onthe display device. The feature involves a portion that is selectable inthe user interface to accept content via a drag-and-drop operation andoutput one or more indications of actions that are performable on eachof the content accepted in the portion.

This Summary is provided to introduce a selection of concepts in asimplified form that are further described below in the DetailedDescription. This Summary is not intended to identify key features oressential features of the claimed subject matter, nor is it intended tobe used as an aid in determining the scope of the claimed subjectmatter.

BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF THE DRAWINGS

The detailed description is described with reference to the accompanyingfigures. In the figures, the left-most digit(s) of a reference numberidentifies the figure in which the reference number first appears. Theuse of the same reference numbers in different instances in thedescription and the figures may indicate similar or identical items.

FIG. 1 is an illustration of an example implementation of a mobilecommunications device in accordance with one or more embodiments ofdevices, features, and systems for mobile communications.

FIG. 2 is an illustration of a system in an example implementation thatshows a gesture that is used to collect content in the portion of theuser interface of FIG. 1.

FIG. 3 is an illustration of a system in an example implementation inwhich content is shown that is accepted into a portion of FIG. 2.

FIG. 4 is a flow diagram depicting a procedure in an exampleimplementation in which a portion is output in a user interface that isconfigured to accept content and then perform an action involving eachof the content.

FIG. 5 is a flow diagram depicting a procedure in an exampleimplementation in which a user interface is output having a portion thatis configured to accept content and usable to automatically form acommunication without further user interaction.

FIG. 6 illustrates various components of an example device that can beimplemented in various embodiments as any type of a mobile device toimplement embodiments of devices, features, and systems for mobilecommunications.

DETAILED DESCRIPTION

Overview

Mobile communications devices typically have a small form factor to aidemobility of the mobile communications device. For example, the mobilecommunications device (e.g., a mobile phone) may be configured with arelatively minimal amount of display area and limited input devices(e.g., a keypad) so that the device may be easily transported.Consequently, traditional techniques used to interact with aconventional computer (e.g., a desktop PC) may be frustrating when usedin conjunction with a mobile communications device.

For instance, selection and sharing of content (e.g., photos, video, andso on) on a mobile communications device may be difficult usingtraditional techniques due to the limitations of the small form factordescribed above. Consequently, traditional mobile communications deviceswere configured to interact with a single item of content at a time.

A mobile communications device user interface is described. In animplementation, a portion of a user interface is configured as a“bucket” to allow a user to drag-and-drop multiple items of content intoit. The portion may be persisted between applications by an operatingsystem such that a user may navigate between applications and storeitems of content from the applications using the portion. Actions maythen be applied to the content that has been accepted in the bucket as awhole, such as to form a communication, a playlist, and so on, furtherdiscussion of which may be found in relation to the following sections.

In the following discussion, a variety of example implementations of amobile communications device (e.g., a wireless phone) are described.Additionally, a variety of different functionality that may be employedby the mobile communications device is described for each example, whichmay be implemented in that example as well as in other describedexamples. Accordingly, example implementations are illustrated of a fewof a variety of contemplated implementations. Further, although a mobilecommunications device having one or more modules that are configured toprovide telephonic functionality are described, a variety of othermobile devices are also contemplated, such as personal digitalassistants, mobile music players, dedicated messaging devices, portablegame devices, netbooks, and so on.

Example Implementations

FIG. 1 is an illustration of an example implementation 100 of a mobilecommunications device 102 in accordance with one or more embodiments ofdevices, features, and systems for mobile communications. The mobilecommunications device 102 is operable to assume a plurality ofconfigurations, examples of which include a configuration as illustratedin FIG. 1 in which the mobile communications device 102 is “open” and aconfiguration in which the mobile communications device 102 is “closed”as illustrated in FIGS. 2-3.

The mobile communications device 102 is further illustrated as includinga first housing 104 and a second housing 106 that are connected via aslide 108 such that the first and second housings 104, 106 may move(e.g., slide) in relation to one another. Although sliding is described,it should be readily apparent that a variety of other movementtechniques are also contemplated, e.g., a pivot, a hinge and so on.

The first housing 104 includes a display device 110 that may be used tooutput a variety of content, such as a caller identification (ID),contacts, images (e.g., photos) as illustrated, email, multimediamessages, Internet browsing, game play, music, video and so on. In animplementation, the display device 110 is configured to function as aninput device by incorporating touchscreen functionality, e.g., throughcapacitive, surface acoustic wave, resistive, optical, strain gauge,dispersive signals, acoustic pulse, and other touchscreen functionality.The touchscreen functionality (as well as other functionality such astrack pads) may be used to detect gestures, further discussion of whichmay be found in relation to FIGS. 2 and 3.

The second housing 106 is illustrated as including a keyboard 112 thatmay also be used to provide inputs to the mobile communications device102. Although the keyboard 112 is illustrated as a QWERTY keyboard, avariety of other examples are also contemplated, such as a keyboard thatfollows a traditional telephone keypad layout (e.g., a twelve keynumeric pad found on basic telephones), keyboards configured for otherlanguages (e.g., Cyrillic), and so on.

In the “open” configuration as illustrated in the example implementation100 of FIG. 1, the first housing 104 is moved (e.g., slid) “away” fromthe second housing 106 using the slide 108. Other implementations arealso contemplated, such as a “clamshell” configuration, “brick”configuration, and so on.

The form factor employed by the mobile communications device 102 may besuitable to support a wide variety of features. For example, thekeyboard 112 is illustrated as supporting a QWERTY configuration. Thisform factor may be particularly convenient to a user to utilize thepreviously described functionality of the mobile communications device102, such as to compose texts, play games, check email, “surf” theInternet, provide status messages for a social network, and so on.

The mobile communications device 102 is also illustrated as including acommunication module 114. The communication module 114 is representativeof functionality of the mobile communications device 102 to communicatevia a network 116. For example, the communication module 114 may includetelephone functionality to make and receive telephone calls. Thecommunication module 114 may also include a variety of otherfunctionality, such as to capture content, form short message service(SMS) text messages, multimedia messaging service (MMS) messages,emails, status updates to be communicated to a social network service,and so on. A user, for instance, may input a status update forcommunication via the network 116 to the social network service. Thesocial network service may then publish the status update to “friends”of the user, e.g., for receipt by the friends via a computer, respectivemobile communications devices, and so on. A variety of other examplesare also contemplated, such as blogging, instant messaging, and so on.

The mobile communications device 102 is also illustrated as including auser interface module 118. The user interface module 118 isrepresentative of functionality of the mobile communications device 102to generate, manage, and/or output a user interface 120 for display onthe display device 110. A variety of different techniques may beemployed to generate the user interface.

For example, the user interface module 118 may configure the userinterface 120 to include a portion 122 to collect a plurality ofcontent, such as the images 124 in the user interface 120 of FIG. 1. Theuser interface module 118 may then expose a plurality of actions 126that may be performed using each of the content collected in the portion122. A variety of different actions 126 may be performed, such as toform a communication 128, form a playlist 130, form a slideshow 132, andso on. Thus, in this way content may be first collected using theportion 122 (the “bucket”) and then an object (e.g., the communication,playlist, or slideshow) may be formed. This differs from conventionaltechniques in which the object was first formed (e.g., a playlist, acommunication, and so on) and then populated with content. A variety ofdifferent techniques may be used to collect content using the portion122, an example of which is described in relation to the followingfigure.

FIG. 2 illustrates a system 200 in an example implementation in which agesture that is used to collect content in the portion 122 of the userinterface 120. The illustrated system 200 shows a plurality of steps202, 204, 206, 208 that are used to collect content in the portion 122.The mobile communication device 102 is illustrated in the first step 202as outputting the user interface 120 having a plurality of content,which are images in this example. A user's finger 210 selects the image212 of the dog by placing the finger 210 against the surface of thedisplay device 110.

At the second step 204, touchscreen functionality of the mobilecommunications device 102 is used to detect the selection. In response,a thumbnail image 214 of the image 212 of the dog is created whichfollows the dragging of the user's finger 210 across the display device210. For example, an animation may be displayed to give the appearancethat the thumbnail image 210 “pops off” the image 212 of the dog.Additionally, the display of the image 212 may also be changed toindicate the selection, which is illustrated through the use ofgrayscale in the second step 204.

At the third step 206, the thumbnail image 214 has been dragged proximalto the portion 122 of the user interface 120 to follow the user's finger210. In response, an animation is displayed that gives an appearance ofthe thumbnail image 214 being “dropped in the bucket.” For example, theanimation may cause the thumbnail image 214 to be rotated and scaled(e.g., shrunk). In this way, the user is informed that the content(e.g., the image 212) is being input. A variety of other examples arealso contemplated.

At the fourth step 208, the display of the image 212 returns back to theoriginal state, e.g., to match the original state in the first step 202.Additionally, a display of the portion 122 is changed to indicate thatthe portion contains the image. Thus, the user is informed in thisinstance that the portion 122 “contains” the image 122. This process maybe repeated to include a wide variety of content in the portion 122 froma wide variety of applications. For example, the content included in theportion 122 may be heterogeneous (e.g., “mixed”) to include music,images, movies, contacts, documents, and so on obtained from a varietyof different applications. Although a drag-and-drop operation has beendescribed for a single item of content, multiple items may also beselected (e.g., sequentially or at one time) and then dragged together.A variety of different actions may then be performed based on whatcontent is included in the portion 122, further discussion of which maybe found in relation to the following figure.

FIG. 3 illustrates a system 300 in an example implementation in whichcontent is shown that is accepted into the portion 122. A user's hand210 is shown as selecting the portion 122, which causes content that hasbeen placed “in” the portion 122 to be displayed in the user interface120.

The user interface 120 may also include options that are selectable toperform represented actions, examples of which are illustrated as upload302 and send 304. The upload 302 option is selectable to cause contentincluded in the portion 122 to be uploaded to a network site, such as asocial network service. For example, the user interface module 118 maydetermine that a contact (e.g., “Ellie” in the illustrated example) hasbeen included in the portion 122. Accordingly, the user interface module118 may upload content that is not the contact to a network locationspecified in the contact “Ellie.” A similar technique may also beemployed to form a communication to one or multiple contacts, furtherdiscussion of which may be found in relation to the followingprocedures.

Example Procedures

The following discussion describes user interface techniques that may beimplemented utilizing the previously described systems and devices.Aspects of each of the procedures may be implemented in hardware,firmware, software, or a combination thereof. The procedures are shownas a set of blocks that specify operations performed by one or moredevices and are not necessarily limited to the orders shown forperforming the operations by the respective blocks. In portions of thefollowing discussion, reference will be made to the environment 100 andsystems 200-300 of FIGS. 1-3, respectively.

FIG. 4 depicts a procedure 400 in an example implementation in which aportion is output in a user interface that is configured to acceptcontent and then perform an action involving each of the content. Afeature is exposed to a plurality of application to output, in a userinterface for display on a display device, a portion that is selectablein the user interface to accept content (block 402). For example,functionality of the media module 108 may be incorporated within anoperating system that is executable on a processor of the mobile mediadevice 104 and is storable in memory or other computer-readable storagemedia of the mobile communications device 104. The operating system mayexpose this functionality to applications that are also executed on themobile communications device 104 via an application programminginterface (API). Further discussion of an operating system may be foundin relation to FIG. 6.

One or more indications of actions are output that are performable oneach of the content accepted in the portion (block 404). Thus, in thisexample, the content is gathered and then a variety of actions areperformable on the content by selecting the action (block 406). Forexample, a playlist may be created in response to selection of acorresponding action (block 408) “create playlist” when the portionincludes content configured as media, e.g., songs, videos, and so on. Inanother example, the content may be uploaded to a social network site inresponse to selection of a corresponding action (block 410) “upload.”For instance, the media module 108 may automatically (or in conjunctionwith manual interaction of a user) provide credentials to a socialnetwork website via the network 106 to upload content to a user'saccount upon selection of an “upload” action. In a further example, acommunication is formed in response to selection of a correspondingaction (block 412), such as an email, text message, and so on. Furtherdiscussion of communication formation may be found in relation to thefollowing figure.

FIG. 5 depicts a procedure 500 in an example implementation in which auser interface is output having a portion that is configured to acceptcontent and usable to automatically form a communication without furtheruser interaction. A user interface is output that has a portion that isconfigured to accept content (block 502). For example, the portion 122may accept content such as images, music, and contacts.

When an option is selected in relation to the portion to initiate acommunication and the content includes one or more contacts, thecommunication is formed to include the content and is automaticallyaddressed to the one or more contacts (block 504). For example, themedia module 108 may identify which of the content accepted via theportion 122 includes relevant contact information, e.g., a telephonenumber, email address, and so on. Therefore, when an option is selected(e.g., a representation of an action “email”) the communication isformed and populated with the relevant contact information of each ofthe contacts accepted by the portion 122 automatically and withoutfurther user interaction. A variety of other examples are alsocontemplated, such as formation of a SMS, MMS, and so on.

Example Device

FIG. 6 illustrates various components of an example device 600 that canbe implemented in various embodiments as any type of a mobile device toimplement embodiments of devices, features, and systems for mobilecommunications. For example, device 600 can be implemented as any of themobile communications devices 102 described with reference to respectiveFIGS. 1-3. Device 600 can also be implemented to access a network-basedservice, such as a social network service as previously described.

Device 600 includes input 602 that may include Internet Protocol (IP)inputs as well as other input devices, such as the keyboard 112 ofFIG. 1. Device 600 further includes communication interface 604 that canbe implemented as any one or more of a wireless interface, any type ofnetwork interface, and as any other type of communication interface. Anetwork interface provides a connection between device 600 and acommunication network by which other electronic and computing devicescan communicate data with device 600. A wireless interface enablesdevice 600 to operate as a mobile device for wireless communications.

Device 600 also includes one or more processors 606 (e.g., any ofmicroprocessors, controllers, and the like) which process variouscomputer-executable instructions to control the operation of device 600and to communicate with other electronic devices. Device 600 can beimplemented with computer-readable media 608, such as one or more memorycomponents, examples of which include random access memory (RAM) andnon-volatile memory (e.g., any one or more of a read-only memory (ROM),flash memory, EPROM, EEPROM, etc.).

Computer-readable media 608 provides data storage to store content anddata 610, as well as device applications and any other types ofinformation and/or data related to operational aspects of device 600.For example, an operating system 612 can be maintained as a computerapplication with the computer-readable media 608 and executed onprocessor 606. Device applications can also include a communicationmanager module 614 (which may be used to provide telephonicfunctionality) and a media manager 616.

Device 600 also includes an audio and/or video output 618 that providesaudio and/or video data to an audio rendering and/or display system 620.The audio rendering and/or display system 620 can be implemented asintegrated component(s) of the example device 600, and can include anycomponents that process, display, and/or otherwise render audio, video,and image data. Device 600 can also be implemented to provide a usertactile feedback, such as vibrate and haptics.

Generally, the blocks may be representative of modules that areconfigured to provide represented functionality. Further, any of thefunctions described herein can be implemented using software, firmware(e.g., fixed logic circuitry), manual processing, or a combination ofthese implementations. The terms “module,” “functionality,” and “logic”as used herein generally represent software, firmware, hardware or acombination thereof. In the case of a software implementation, themodule, functionality, or logic represents program code that performsspecified tasks when executed on a processor (e.g., CPU or CPUs). Theprogram code can be stored in one or more computer readable memorydevices. The features of the techniques described above areplatform-independent, meaning that the techniques may be implemented ona variety of commercial computing platforms having a variety ofprocessors.

CONCLUSION

Although the invention has been described in language specific tostructural features and/or methodological acts, it is to be understoodthat the invention defined in the appended claims is not necessarilylimited to the specific features or acts described. Rather, the specificfeatures and acts are disclosed as example forms of implementing theclaimed invention.

What is claimed is:
 1. A computing device comprising: a display device;a processor; and memory, communicatively coupled to the processor,storing instructions executable on the processor to enable a pluralityof applications to utilize a portion output on the display device, theportion configured to: accept content via a touch operation, the touchoperation selecting a representation of the content prior to acceptanceof the content by the portion; selectively hide accepted content fromview on the display device; change a display state to indicateacceptance of the content by the portion; and responsive to selection ofthe portion, present one or more actions that are performable on contentaccepted in the portion.
 2. A computing device as described in claim 1,wherein the one or more actions include forming a communication.
 3. Acomputing device as described in claim 1, wherein the portion is furtherconfigured to retain accepted content in the portion during navigationbetween applications of the plurality of applications.
 4. A computingdevice as described in claim 1, wherein the content includes a video anda contact.
 5. A computing device as described in claim 1, wherein theone or more actions include creating a playlist or initiating aslideshow.
 6. A method implemented by a device, the method comprising:presenting, on a display of the device, a portion acting as a bucketthat is configured to: accept content via a gesture; and selectivelyconceal accepted content from view on the display; receiving selectionof, via the gesture, content for acceptance by the portion; presentingan indication related to the selected content prior to the content beingaccepted by the portion; accepting, by the portion, the content;responsive to accepting the content, changing a display state of theportion to indicate the acceptance of the content; responsive toreceiving selection of the portion, displaying the content accepted bythe portion; and responsive to displaying the content accepted by theportion, presenting one or more actions performable on the contentaccepted by the portion.
 7. A method as described in claim 6, whereinthe one or more actions include forming a communication.
 8. A method asdescribed in claim 7, wherein the communication is an email and thecontent includes at least one email address that is used to address thecommunication.
 9. A method as described in claim 7, wherein thecommunication is automatically addressed to one or more contacts basedon the content accepted by the portion.
 10. A method as described inclaim 7, wherein the communication is an upload to a social networkservice and the content includes at least one network address that isused to automatically address the communication.
 11. A method asdescribed in claim 6, wherein the portion is provided by an operatingsystem and exposed to a plurality of applications such that the contentaccepted by the portion persists in the portion during navigationbetween applications of the plurality of application.
 12. A method asdescribed in claim 6, wherein the gesture is a drag and drop gesture andpresenting the indication related to the selected content persistsduring dragging.
 13. A method as described in claim 6, wherein theindication related to the selected content includes a visualrepresentation of the selected content.
 14. A method as described inclaim 6, wherein the selected content for acceptance by the portionincludes a plurality content selected from more than application.
 15. Amethod as described in claim 6, wherein the selected content foracceptance by the portion includes media data and contact data.
 16. Oneor more computer-readable hardware storage media encoded withcomputer-executable instructions that, responsive to execution,configure a user interface to: provide a portion that is configured to:accept content via a gesture; the gesture selecting a representation ofthe content prior to acceptance of the content by the portion;selectively hide accepted content from view; change a display state toindicate acceptance of the content by the portion; and responsive toselection of the portion: display accepted content; and provide anoption that is selectable to initiate a communication to a networklocation specified by the accepted content.
 17. One or morecomputer-readable hardware storage media as described in claim 16,wherein the communication is an email that is addressed to a contactbased on the accepted content.
 18. One or more computer-readablehardware storage media as described in claim 16, wherein thecommunication is a single multimedia messaging service (MMS)communication.
 19. One or more computer-readable hardware storage mediaas described in claim 16, wherein the communication is an upload to anetwork.
 20. One or more computer-readable hardware storage media asdescribed in claim 16, wherein the option is selectable to output aplurality of additional options, each of the plurality of additionaloptions indicating a different communication technique.